I don't have any issues with Obama and am a little surprised that people are already up in arms. What's the big deal? Am I missing something or are the Republicans going for the jugular a little early?

I don't have any issues with Obama and am a little surprised that people are already up in arms. What's the big deal? Am I missing something or are the Republicans going for the jugular a little early?

I don't have any issues with Obama and am a little surprised that people are already up in arms. What's the big deal? Am I missing something or are the Republicans going for the jugular a little early?

Let's see:

*A lot of his campaign promises were based on Obama being grossly mis-informed about reality.

*Much of his "stimulus" package is actually pork spending, with some of it actually going abroad.

*Several of Obama's appointees have gone down in flames, with three - including his Treasury nominee - getting popped because they didn't pay their taxes.

*A lot of his campaign promises were based on Obama being grossly mis-informed about reality.

*Much of his "stimulus" package is actually pork spending, with some of it actually going abroad.

*Several of Obama's appointees have gone down in flames, with three - including his Treasury nominee - getting popped because they didn't pay their taxes.

1. You'll have to be more specific about the campaign promises and reality. I'm not sure what you're alluding to. Every president sets out a wish list, one which reality often dashes to pieces. Reagan was going to give us Star Wars. Bush I was going to give us a "kinder, gentler, nation" - but that was before we invaded Panama and bailed out the savings and loans. Clinton was going to give us healthcare. Bush II was going to finish Star Wars.

2. All "stimulus" packages are pork spending, a term with all the solidity of jello.

3. Several of Obama's appointess have definitely "gone down in flames." Part of that has to do with Republicans doing all they can do after losing the White House and both houses of Congress. Part of it has to do with failures of disclosure or investigation. Part of it has to do with the higher expectations of an Obama appointment (Bush had no problem appointing his friends, regardless of qualifications or conflicts of interest). Part of it is Obama needing to toughen up, as "bipartisanship" won't survive hardball opposition from the GOP (or a Democratic majority stiffening with the prospect of having Congress and the White House after eight years of Bush). Part of it is simply the process doing what it's supposed to do.

For a little reality, think back to Bush (who appointed his personal lawyer as Attorney General and Foghorn Leghorn to be our Ambassador to the U.N.). Or for similar comic relief, look at Bill Clinton's run of nominees, which included Zoe Baird for Secretary of Labor (even though she had hired an undocumented worker as her housekeeper) and Alan Ginsberg for U.S. Supreme Court (even though he had admitted to smoking pot with his students while teaching law school). In Washington, as the saying goes, if you want a friend, get a dog. Or in the immortal words of Vince Foster, "In this town, they destroy people for sport."

Well, of course, they do, skippy. And what part of that didn't you know before you came to town?

Obama wanted to both raise taxes on the wealthy and raise the luxury tax level, all while we're heading into a depression.

By making luxury items (which can be just about anything) more expensive and taking more money from the rich, that's less they can pay for these luxuries.

If the poor don't start using their tax refunds to buy these items (which would make no sense as they're poor), then we could see the luxury item industries take a hit that could lead to job losses.

Thus, Obama would have been gambling the health of several sectors of the market (all sectors involved in manufacturing and retailing luxury items) for slim odds on a tax payoff in the future.

While I agree with you that raising taxes on the wealthy, including the luxury tax, is not consistent with restarting the economy, I think you're either being unfair or misled about Obama's interest in doing both simultaneously. Obama has been campaigning for two years, and his "take" on issues like taxes should be understood in terms of a discussion that goes back that far. I don't think Obama is, at this very moment, calling for a huge tax hike. While the conditions producing the current stall-out go back to at least December of 2007, the Bush administration did not come clean until December 2008, when its most conservative figures indicated that we were not just in a recession but that we've been in a recession for the last 12 months.

All candiates for office run on a set of core values. Those values are often aimed at a group of voters in the middle of their target constituency. For years, Bush campaigned on a package of lower taxes and less government spending. While government spending under his administration has hardly been "conservative," Bush did come through with his own stimulus package - which was scaled to give the most benefits to the wealthiest Americans. Instead of giving every America a certain amount of money, the Bush tax cuts were based on the amount of each individual's taxable income, which meant that richer people got more money, in some cases, vastly more money. Bush - and his Republican partners in Congress - spent the first six years of his presidency going easy on regulation (which is partly why we have a mushroom cloud in the finance sector, not unlike the huge S&L scandal that came to a head during his father's presidency). Bush and the Republican-dominated Congress gave their favorite sectors lots and lots of love - reducing their overhead with regulation that didn't regulate while giving selected industries fat-cat tax breaks.

For the last eight years, it has been part of the Democrats' discussion that they would head up regulatory agencies with regulators who would do their job. The FAA would be expected to do a better job of keeping the skies safe. Customs and the FBI would do a better job of keeping bad guys out. Executive agencies would be run by people who believe in the mission of executive agencies, not industry insiders looking to block actual enforcement of the law. Part of that discussion has focused on taxes, with the idea that certain loopholes should be closed and certain tax breaks rescinded.

To the extent that Obama has been part of this discussion, he has been calling for an end of what many Democrats see as abusive pandering. While government can tax too much, it can also cease to be relevant as it sells out to the highest bidder. Many people feel the Bush administration was all about selling out. Now, when Democrats speak of ending certain tax breaks, the Republicans spin it as tax hikes, but only because they think they're entitled to every tax dodge they can dream up. Nobody likes to pay taxes but the country can't run on bluster. Many people feel the Bush administration turned out to be a lot more freewheeling than they said they'd be on the campaign trail. With record deficits and spending priorities that seem out of whack, you can expect Democrats to reset the agenda - and for Republicans to whine about it.

And if the Democrats do a worse job than the Republicans did for eight years, there's an election coming up in 2012. But I doubt the country will blame the Democrats, nor do I think our present situation will be hanging over us in 2012. I think the Republicans sense that, which is why they're getting their digs in now, before things can improve. If they can convince enough people this whole mess is the Democrats' fault, they have a hope and a prayer for 2012. Otherwise, Obama is looking at a second term, something that scares and depresses them.

But getting back to the issue of taxes and a stimulus, I don't see Obama as signing a huge tax increase, not when the economy is stalled. The idea that he's about to do this is a combination of a discussion that occurred before your current situation - and a lot of Republican rhetoric now. Obama will need to get tougher with Republicans, because their team thinks it can fight its way to a Congressional victory in 2010. If they don't want the olive branch, the Democrats should run them over. Right now is not a great time to be a Republican. Republicans are the party of less domestic government and more military spending. That's not much of a sell when the market is kicking people to the curb and the amount of money spent on invading the wrong country has produced record deficits and little benefit to the country.